Below is a little side street in Shanghai. On the top-left you can see them cleaning out metal steamboats that the hole-in-the-wall food joint were using. Why is there a fire buring in a metal pail? Absolutely no idea! Perhaps it was to keep passerbys warm? Or maybe keep the charcoal burning until the next set of customers arrive and the charcoal is used to heat the steamboats? The streets in Shanghai aren’t really this dirty, most are just fine, but this corner in particular was… different looking 😉 Does the area smell? Actually, nope. Smelled just like normal night air mixed with the smell of fragrant cooking and charcoal.

Spent the day wandering around Shanghai with a friend, who’s Shanghainese and took me around shopping and eating up a storm! Decided to buy tea from a traditional tea shop (which by the way, I am drinking all day long by my desk at work.. just like all my other Chinese colleages! I’m loving it. So nice having something warm to drink, and knowing that it’s good for my health), and the tea lady sat us down by a little wooden tree-bark table and poured out about 8 cups each, so we could select our favourite. Of course, I was busting to pee within minutes. She very graciously let me go upstairs into her/someone’s place to use the loo.

I was absolutely fascinated. To get in, you enter via a hanging bead curtain, and the width of the entrance is less than the length of your arm – it’s like a fat test, if you can’t get into your own home, you’re too fat!! 😛 Then we went up a tiny little curved wooden staircase that creaked with every step and then turned into a tiny bathroom. Was rather surprised that it was a Western style toilet (ie. the one you sit on) instead of the really traditional Chinese toilets (which are built into the ground, which I can’t stand). Afterwards, I looked around for a flush… and there wasn’t one! All confused, I finally realised you scoop water from a pail and just pour it down the toilet. After searching for and giving up on finding a tap, my friend found it for me afterwards – you push this little metal button and a bit of water comes dripping out. A real experience – the toilet wasn’t dirty, in fact it was surprisingly clean.. it was just tiny!

Then when I started to go back down the stairs again, I realise that opposite the stairs, THERE WAS A BED!!! It was the bedroom! It is, literally, a shelf that was built into the wall, with a thin mattress stuffed into it. A wooden ladder was propped there to let you climb from the stairs landing into the little “bedroom”. It was and astonishing sight, and absolutely fascinating. I, erm, took a few sneaky photos quickly because I don’t think I’ll see the inside of a place like that again and wanted to remember it!

The one and only window looking out onto the street

Turn around and you’re at the top of the stairs. See the wooden ladder on the left?….

….It brings you to the “bedroom”!

We were walking through a beautiful park with a lake, which was all serene and beautiful – considering it’s right in the city. What a lovely place to go for a morning or evening stroll! Considering the streets of the city area are so PACKED with people, it’s a breath of fresh air to be able to walk around a fairly empty area. We were wandering around, enjoying the view, when I spotted a dog!! It was just sitting there, and at first I thought it was a toy/stuffed dog. And then it moved. HOLY CRAP THE DOG WAS CUTE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It was ridiculously, ridiculously adorable. Absolutely tiny, so so so soft, and so gentle/sweet.

Of course, I ran over like a crazy person and asked if I could cuddle it. It immediately snuggled up to me, probably because I was warm 😛 My heart melted into goo. I felt a bit faint. I was in love. It was the cutest cutest lil thing and so adorable and I FREAKIN’ WANTED IT!!!!!!!!!!!!! I think I must’ve made its owner nervous ‘cos I wouldn’t let his dog go 😛 Check out the photos – don’t do it justice cos you can’t really see the puppy in it’s fully cutey cuteness!

Hello puppy!

Aiiiiieeeee!!!!!! So soft and warm and cuddly

It started playing with my scarf pompom like a ball *dies of cuteness*